Greater New Orleans

In this April 20, 2011 photo, men work on an oyster boat that is dry docked due to the fact that the oyster beds have been ruined by fresh water diversion from the Mississippi River, as a response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in Pointe a la Hache, La. Wednesday,.
(Gerald Herbert, The Associated Press)

Given its appeals success rate thus far, BP may be stuck with the settlement agreement it signed off on regarding the Deepwater Horizon blowout. That does not mean, however, that it's a good deal or will ultimately prove a fair one for the company or claimants.

A filing last week in the matter depicts players gouging at what, in some circles, must seem a bottomless honey pot of corporate money. The picture is not a pretty one.

The story was overshadowed by another legal blow BP suffered before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. A panel affirmed the settlement arrangement -- crafted in no small part and then approved by BP -- which doesn't require claimants to tie a financial loss to the spill. For now, then, the four corners of that deal, against which BP is mounting a rear-guard action, remain binding.

The story also may lose resonance because few Louisianians may cry for BP, even if the company has labored and spent billions to resurrect its public image. Environmental calamities that kill 11 people have a way of lingering in history and public opinion.

So let's stipulate BP in many respects made its bed and, thus far, the federal courts have declined to change the sheets. None of that makes the sort of thing the appointed Special Master Louis Freeh outlined in his filings last week even close to kosher.

Freeh asked the court to clawback more than $400,000 shelled out in what he alleged was a fraudulent claim submitted to the Deepwater Horizon claims' office Seafood Compensation Program. That total includes $357,002.35 paid to Casey Thonn, a Slidell shrimper; unspecified fees racked up by attorneys John Andry and Glen Lerner, Thonn's lawyers; $20,182.50 for a bill from an outfit called Coastal Claims Group LLC, and $35,700.23 from Lionel "Tiger" Sutton III. Sutton is a former employee of the claims office whom Freeh, in an earlier report, accused of getting kickbacks from trial lawyer buddies filing claims.

The connections on this one reflect the multiple ways players are sucking as much cash as possible from the claims process, turning what began as something of a calculated risk by BP into a gluttonous frenzy. What's more, this money grab is not confined to an avaricious plaintiffs' bar, but now features accounting firms formed exclusively for BP claims work.

Freeh asserts that Thonn's claim was thoroughly bogus, replete with concocted IRS tax returns and what appear to be padded costs. "The record unquestionably reveals," Thonn's documentation was fraudulent, Freeh alleges, and "the professionals who helped Mr. Thonn submit his false claims" should cough up their fees, too.

Despite claiming a 2009 loss, for example, Thonn was actually unemployed that year and didn't file a tax return, according to court papers. Nevertheless, Coastal Claims duly put together and billed $20,000 for its report, while Team Thonn rounded up affidavits from alleged customers, some of whose claims that they bought shrimp from Thonn in previous years is deeply suspect, according to Freeh.

Coastal Claims' price for what would seem fairly straightforward accounting work isn't the only surprising thing about the company. For one thing, its report calculated the loss to Thonn, whose returns showed adjusted gross income in 2010 as $43,426, at a whopping $586,731.

In addition, Coastal Claims, which incorporated in March 2012 to get in on the oil spill settlement business, has as its registered agent and a listed principal John Andry's sister, Brooke, according to state records.

John Andry's lawyer, Lewis Unglesby, said Freeh's latest motion is of a part with his previous court filings. "It is unfortunate that this has all spun out of control," Unglesby said. Attorneys routinely rely on documents clients swear in affidavits are genuine, he noted, and Unglesby said Freeh has displayed a habit of imputing sinister motives to developments that are easily explained.

Still, the overall stage at this point seems thick with villains. Indeed, the trial lawyer camp also has accused Freeh of having his own white shoe conflicts of interest, and they complain about his bills. BP, which pays everything, has thus far voiced no objection to Freeh's costs.

But it seems implausible the case outlined by Freeh is isolated. The total number of claims filed so far remains secret. But it must be huge because last December, for example, an attorney for the Andry Lerner firm noted it had filed "in excess of 750 claims."

It would be wrong to simply shrug over such a legal free-for-all. After all, gushers of corporate cash usually can be capped more easily than holes on the ocean floor. As the growing intensity of BP's legal resistance to the settlement suggests, the company is unwilling to play a supine piggy-bank role indefinitely. That could make it harder for the people who suffered genuine harm in the spill to regain losses.

More broadly, there is the corrosive ripple effect to all this. The escalating costs have already triggered debate in the corporate and legal world as to whether BP's generosity and regretful pose makes sense in response to tragedy and accidents, or if companies should mount a relentless defense in which every dollar is contested and delayed.